


The Lady in the Tower

by Etrangere



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etrangere/pseuds/Etrangere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was beautiful, they say, as beautiful as she was wicked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lady in the Tower

Nobody ever sees her. She lives walled up in the tower and a blind servant brings her meals every day, without saying any word. The mercy of the queen, they say, to even let her live (but was it really?). It makes people curious, of course.

They say she was beautiful, once, the lady in the tower. As beautiful as she was wicked, some like to say. They say armies had gone to war for the sake of her beauty (or was that for another? They all blend together, the beautiful queens and princesses from before the Long Winter). Sometimes they whisper of her children, who were Kings, and long dead, murdered by poison and treachery. Some say she murdered them herself.

Some people - mostly children, when they try to out scare each others at night around the fire - say that she is beautiful still, that she bathes every month in the blood of virgins to keep her beauty as youthful and fresh as when she was a maiden.

(She would probably have tried it, had she ever thought of it. Maybe she did, when she was still queen).

She thinks she is beautiful still. She is mad and old and there is no mirror in the tower. She likes to tell the blind servant about the man who loves her and will rescue her, her one true love. His name keeps changing in the telling, and the servant never says anything in answer, even when the tale turns crude and filled with filth.

Sometimes, when it is very cold and very dark, she cries madly _"the valonqar, the valonqar!"_ until the soldiers who guard the tower must hammer at the door with their weapons for her to stop.

She is very old, they say, older than winter, colder than iron, deadlier than age. All who loved her and all who hated her are long dead. Nobody ever says her name, but they look at the solitary tower, and tell stories. She was beautiful, they say, as beautiful as she was wicked.


End file.
